super supra

Despite some very ambitious plans for the weekend, we spent most of it in Tbilisi but with a very interesting excursion out of town. But before getting on to that, I'll have to talk about the dinner I went to on Saturday night. I know I spend a lot of time talking about food and drink, but honestly, and I have confirmed this, this is what many Georgians spend their social time doing- so don't think I'm just eating and drinking with a bunch of Americans at the expense of experiencing Georgian culture. So the dinner... the ocassion: Brian (the health care consultant) having friends in from Armenia to visit for the weekend. He put on a pretend supra, the formal Georgian dinner, pretend because we didn't strictly adhere to the rules of the toasts, only those we liked. The company: Rob, Rachel, and I from Emory Med; Brian and his girlfriend Tea (Tay-uh), a Georgian tuberculosis physician and epidemiologist (TB is treated in a separate facility than other infectious diseases); Tea's gorgeous childhood friend Nana and her date Niril (Georgians); Hans (German) and his date Elizabeth (American)- they had some ambiguous association with Brian; and Silvie (Dutch), Andrew (Canadian), and Runway (Norwegian), the guests from Armenia. For clarification, Runway is probably a gross mispronounciation of a female Norweigian name that I heard pronounced something like "Roon-vey," but as she was a beatiful girl, and we American's couldn't figure it out, Runway stuck.

And then there was Giorgi (Georgian that went to Emory) as our tamada. To explain a couple rules of the supra: the "tamada" is the toastmaster. In a formal supra, he makes all toasts or grants permission for others to give them. Giorgi is a very eloquent toast-giver as we have seen, and Georgian, which is why he was tapped for the role. Also in a formal supra, you only drink when the tamada makes a toast (a rule not followed), but usually you would drink a whole glass of white wine down with each toast (not necessarily followed). When you are toasted to, you must drink your whole glass, and when you toast to someone else, you must drink your whole glass (a rule that we enforced- Giorgi on himself, so imagine that by the end, as the official toast-giver, he was feeling pretty good). And the tamada can designate an "alaverdi" who expands on the topic of the toast a little more. For example, Brian was alaverdi to toast to the Armenian visitors, as his friends, and Giorgi picked me as alaverdi in a toast to America... which I found kind of challenging in a group of foreigners. I did my best.

So what I like to think of as a more civilized and more ancient drinking game consumed at least 10 bottles of wine, but not 750 ml bottles like we have at home, probably twice that much per bottle. And the food was fantastic- bear with me if you're not into food, but I know some of my audience is, and I was, and we had: bread, khachapuri (the Georgian cheese bread that is present at every meal), Georgian cheese, including a delicious soft cheese with mint in it, several types (spinach, eggplant, and radish) of walnut-vegetable pastes with fresh herbs (cilantro, parsley, and tarragon, I think) to be eaten with bread; a new experience- salmon eggs to be eaten on bread with butter and topped with a syrupy sweet-salty soy-like sauce; tomato and cucumber salad with walnut paste. Then we moved on to some traditional foods I hadn't had before, all part of a style of foods that are cooked in clay pots and served still in them- veal with onions, and chicken in a very garlicky sauce (delicious!). Finally we were served sturgeon, another very traditional Georgian specialty. I found it kind of rubbery so it wasn't my favorite- don't tell the Georgians.

Sounds like a lot, and it was, but we ate and drank over 4 hours, and part of the idea is to eat and drink constantly without getting too full or too drunk, being able to sample a little of everything and keep up with the tamada. I think I did a pretty good job, if I do say so myself, and really enjoyed the interesting company.

I left in a fantastic mood only for it to be spoiled-- I can't leave this out-- by being defeated by the apartment door. Yes, after several glasses of wine, neither Rachel nor I could open our door in 30 minutes of trying, and at 2 in the morning, I couldn't handle it. I was furious! At the door! At Georgia! It is just not right that two women in a foreign country with a key can still be locked out of their apartment! And as many of you know, when I get very frustrated, I may... cry. So when the 4 boys came home (not too much later) they were trying to both be sympathetic to my frustrated tears and hold down laughter until they let it all out the next day. Fair enough.

I'll just ad that we had a "door-opening workshop" the next day, and I now consider myself a pro.